


Cautionary

by MaryPSue



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Community: rotg_kink, F/M, Identity Issues, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve made him an attack dog, a cautionary tale. They’ve reduced him to a shadow of himself, a mere scary story to keep the people in line. They’ve defanged him completely, trained him to heel, and have the gall to tell him that it’s all for his own good.</p>
<p>And given the chance, he can’t guarantee he wouldn’t do exactly as the fearlings had done, and exact swift and painful vengeance on the one who has trapped him in this waking nightmare. </p>
<p>(“You don’t want to be a darkling monster, do you?”)</p>
<p>Sometimes, he isn’t so sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cautionary

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/2389.html?thread=5646165#cmt5646165
> 
> I should just make it my official mission to fill every Kozmotis-related prompt on the meme, because apparently that is what I am doing anyway.

When he wakes, the collar is back on.

It’s easy to tell, even before he opens his eyes. Last night, everything had sprung into sharp, brilliant focus. He could almost hear the star pilots’ transmissions as they flickered their way across the sky (safe, happy, content in the knowledge that their ruler, the kind, the benevolent, Tsar Lunanoff, had driven away the Dream Pirates and secured those skyways for them); could feel the dark wrap around him like a living thing, sense the chorus of fears that sang from every soul on the planet’s face. This morning, everything is muffled; he can barely hear anything over the throbbing in his head, can’t feel anything but the fever-chill that fills his veins.

The first time they’d tried to press the collar back on him, he’d cried. He’d begged, thrown himself quite literally at the feet of his gaolers, cursed and threatened and pleaded to be given back to the mercy of the fearlings instead of placed into those hateful restraints. He cringes to remember it now. It’s not his lowest moment (no, that came before, that brought him to this point, crouched in golden chains and collared like an _animal_ at the hand of the kind, the benevolent, Tsar Lunanoff) but it is close. Still, even after so many nights he can still feel the bone-deep ache, the stuttering weakness, the hated fever-chills that wrack his body and drove him, once, to beg to be let alone.

( _“Please, please, it burns, it’s_ burning _please please let me go let me – whatever you want whatever you say I swear just don’t let them -”_

_Voice heavy with concern, with sadness. “And leave you a mere puppet of the shadows_ you _released?”)_

He does not beg any longer. It gains him nothing, and his pride, tattered though it may be, is all that he has left.

Today, there will be another whispered rumour passed around between the upper echelon of Celestial society. Another attack in the night, another outspoken noble and their family left shaken, terrified, another reminder of the Tsar’s power and the danger of dissent. Once, these missions left him emptying his stomach of its contents, left him just as terrified as his victims and filled with impotent anger. He cannot say when those feelings left him, when the numbness crept in.  

It must have been, he reflects, shortly before the fearlings realized their mistake. They had meant to make a jailbreak; instead, they have found themselves doubly confined, bound within his bones and suppressed by whatever Pookan magic had wrought this accursed collar.

Now, the only times they taste freedom is these sharp-fanged nights when the Tsar lets them out, on a slightly lengthened leash. They hate this imprisonment more than the last, hate the man who has caused it, but not more than Kozmotis himself does. After all, the fearlings never placed their trust in the Tsar. They never blindly followed his orders. They have no reason to feel betrayed.

At first, they’d whisper those words whenever they got a chance to speak, bitter words of betrayal and disaster and loss and failure, but those words lost their venom when spoken by such helpless prisoners to a willing, agreeable ear. Perhaps that’s the only reason he’s managed to keep even this tentative grasp on sanity; the fact that the clamour of darkling voices in his head is only a louder chorus of what he thinks to himself. There are times when he’s not quite certain what are the words of the fearlings, and what his own thoughts. The idea would be alarming, if he weren’t somehow certain that it works both ways.

They coexist. It’s grudging, but workable. The first time his captors had unleashed him on some poor sod who had no idea his slander of the Tsar’s name would reap such terrible punishments, the fearlings had tried to wrest control from him and turn against their captors just as they’d done to him, only to be brought up short by the sudden explosion of pain through every nerve, a swift shock from the cuffs meant to keep him in line. They’re not used to pain, just as they’re not used to bodies, and much as it had hurt him, it had hurt them even more.

He and the fearlings work together far better, now.

He hates what he’s become, what’s been made of him, but not for the reasons he should. His captors have told him time and again that this is best for him, that anyone else would have dealt a swift death to such a corrupted being, that the collar and cuffs are for his own safety as much as anyone else’s and the magic that muffles the fearlings’ voices is the only thing keeping him sane. That it’s all (the kind, the benevolent) Tsar Lunanoff’s best efforts to help him.

But those lies are paper-thin and tear to shreds every time they set him on one of the people. They’ve made him an attack dog, a cautionary tale. They’ve reduced him to a shadow of himself, a mere scary story to keep the people in line. They’ve defanged him completely, trained him to heel, and have the _gall_ to tell him that it’s all for his own good.

And given the chance, he can’t guarantee he wouldn’t do exactly as the fearlings had done, and exact swift and painful vengeance on the one who has trapped him in this waking nightmare.

( _“You don’t_ want _to be a darkling monster, do you?”_ )

Sometimes, he isn’t so sure.

The sound of the heavy cell door swinging open makes him sigh, in hateful anticipation of what comes next. The parades are the worst part. The night attacks are dreadful, but at least, for however many moonlit hours it takes to wring real terror out of his target, he has something resembling control over himself. Even in chains, he still has his own thoughts, his own tongue, his own _form_. He’s free to curse his gaolers as he likes.

But on parade, even that little freedom is stolen from him. The price of his ‘treatment’, they’d say. More like the Tsar’s chance to impress and awe his population at Kozmotis’ expense. Another chance to turn him into a weapon of fear and keep the people in line. And Kozmotis can’t help but think that the man he once practically worshipped gets a sick satisfaction from seeing his age’s greatest hero and his one rival for the affections of the populace debased and humiliated so thoroughly. To see Kozmotis twisted into a darkling form that barely resembles humanity, forced to play-act viciousness within the bars of a cage from which he has no hope of escape, a prop in the fairy tale of the Tsar who saved his world from Fear itself. After all, every fairy tale must have its villain.

He bows his head as the guard enters the room, staring resolutely at the worn and cracked stone flooring. There was a time when he’d try to fight, when he’d spit in their faces and refuse to change shape. That had gained him nothing but pain. Now, it’s better if he doesn’t let them see how much he hates them, doesn’t give them any reason to think he might try to rebel. Doesn’t give them any excuse to hurt him again.

It’s strange. This guard is silent. It’s a welcome respite; there are those who like nothing more than to taunt him, but even those who seem to try to encourage him make him want to scream. This guard also has far quieter footsteps than most, lighter than the heavy boot-stamps of the others. And their feet, when they step into view, are not booted. Instead, they are small, and the embroidered slippers they wear look oddly familiar. Kozmotis is so focused on trying to place the image, so out of place in this cell, that he almost doesn’t hear the voice that, softly, says his name.

“Oh, Kozmotis, what have they done to you?”

He can’t breathe. Doesn’t want to look up. Has his tentative grip on sanity finally slipped?

But when he does look up, she’s there, real and solid and substantial. “Astrid?” he asks, barely able to believe the evidence of his own senses. Her face is exactly as he remembers it, with perhaps a few more lines, a touch more sadness in her smile. But she _does_ smile, when she sees his face, and it lights her up from within.

He has sailed the stars from the edge of the cosmos to the black hole at their centre, has seen supernovas and auroras, the brilliant spiral-arms of galaxies, the soft radiance of the atmospheres of gas giants in the setting of their suns, the warm golden glow of shooting stars as they fly bravely through the endless dark. But out of every fantastic sight he’s seen, every wonderful moment he’s experienced, she is, and will always be, the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. And there isn’t even a trace of revulsion on her face when she kneels, heedless of her gown, and reaches out to him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he groans, and her hand stops, inches from his cheek. “If they catch you -”

“They won’t,” Astrid promises. “No one knows I’m here – well, save for the guard at the door, and he thinks I’ve come to finally acquiesce to the Tsar’s wishes.” Her upper lip curls, as though the words taste foul, and their fouler implications spark something dark and smouldering in the pit of his chest.

“I will tear him into a thousand tiny, bloody -” Kozmotis stops, abruptly, biting his tongue. Astrid’s eyes are wide, and he curses his own stupidity. He doesn’t want to frighten her, can’t bear to see her look on him with fear and disgust. He can only just take it from the crowds on parade, but – his own _wife_ – “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -”

“Don’t be.” Her expression is flinty. “If I got my hands on that bastard you can be sure I’d do worse.”

There’s a rustling in the corridors of his mind, and for the first time he’s grateful for the collar. He wills the fearlings to quiet down, to go to sleep, to protest their imprisonment and helplessness instead. Anything but this sudden interest in Astrid.

She’s examining his restraints now, and brushes her fingers lightly down the cuff on his left wrist, before grasping his hand in hers. “How do I get you out?” she asks, looking up, and for an instant he sees her eyes glinting gold before reality floods back.

“You don’t,” he manages, squeezing her hand even as he balls his other hand into a fist. “Even if you could somehow get the keys from the Tsar -” His breath catches as she rubs a thumb over the back of his hand. “The – the collar is – without it, you’d already be corrupted, just because you’ve touched me like this.”

“You don’t know that,” she says, softly, leaning in so he can smell her perfume, sweet as starlight.

“ _Please_ , Astrid.”

“You wouldn’t do anything to hurt me,” she whispers. Her forehead presses against his, warm and soft and real, and the fearlings _scream_.

“Maybe _I_ wouldn’t,” he whispers back. “But the fearlings -”

Astrid shakes her head. “I trust you.”

The sob that wells up in his throat catches him by surprise. She wraps her arms around him, pulls him close. He reaches up to hold her, only to be brought up short by the chains, and another sob escapes him unbidden.

“Damn these chains,” Astrid mutters. “When I get you out of them I’m going to have my wicked way with you.”

Kozmotis’ sob chokes off into a laugh. Astrid laughs, too, and her hands cup his face and her lips find his and the fearlings’ howls go quiet.

“These chains are Pookan-made,” he tells her, when they come up for air, and waits for her face to fall. What the Pooka make is not easily broken. They had designed and built the now-useless prison planet, after all, and it would have held for a thousand thousand celestial cycles if he hadn’t –

“Then I’ll ask a Pooka,” Astrid says, fiercely, wrenching him out of his wretched thoughts. “I don’t care how difficult or dangerous it is to break you out. It was difficult and dangerous to find you in the first place, and yet here I am.”

“How _did_ you find me?” Kozmotis asks. Astrid smiles, bright and brittle.

“The Tsar likes to brag.” Her eyes go dark, for a moment. And Kozmotis thought he couldn’t hate the man any more. “He couldn’t resist telling me that he had you stashed away somewhere, and when Sera and I saw you being paraded around town -”

“How -” The thought of Astrid and Seraphina seeing him twisted, inhuman, of them seeing him playing the monster – _of his wife and daughter seeing him more fearling than man_ – sends a chill through him that that is not caused by the collar. “How did you know it was me?”

She looks up, meets his gaze, and holds it, unwavering, unafraid. “Your eyes don’t change.”

_Nor does your heart_ , Kozmotis thinks, and knows he won’t let _any_ harm come to her. Not from himself. Not from _anything_.

…

He sends her back home with words of reassurance and love for both her and Seraphina before they come to collect him for display. The Tsar seems in an unusually sour mood today, impatient and peevish, and he takes issue with everything from the set of his collar to the dragonish form the fearlings twist Kozmotis into as soon as the collar is unlocked and they regain power over his body.

“Too proud, General,” the Tsar snaps, stepping smartly out of reach of Kozmotis’ talons. “Choose something less noble. Something _frightening_.”

Kozmotis isn’t quite certain if it’s him or the fearlings that speak with his voice. “You don’t find me frightening, my lord?”

The shiver that the Tsar tries to hide is answer enough.

“Change,” he says sharply. And then, “I will have a very special task for you for tonight.”

This time, it’s Kozmotis who tries to hide a shiver of foreboding. He has better luck in covering it, though, as his body dissolves into something dark and many-eyed and amorphous.

Tsar Lunanoff gives him an appraising look. “Better.” He snaps his fingers at the two guards who had followed him in. “Hurry up. My public will be waiting.”

…

By the time they come to collect him that night, Kozmotis is a wreck. He can’t stop thinking, can’t stop playing scenarios again and again in his mind. Who will be his victim this time? Someone he knows? Someone he cares about? Will he be given free rein, for the first time, to kill? And if he is, will he be able to check the fearlings again afterwards?

When he learns the truth, though, it is infinitely more horrible than anything he has imagined.

When the small ship docks, he thinks it can’t possibly be at the port he suspects it is. But as they turn up the drive, the sick dread in the pit of his stomach only grows with each familiar tree, each well-remembered cobblestone. He knows where they must be before they even reach the gates, but the sight of their wrought-iron bulk still shatters something inside him.

“No…”

He doesn’t realise he’s said anything aloud until the Tsar steps up beside him. “Oh, _yes_. She’s rejected me at every opportunity, blatantly and publicly defied me, and now, it seems, she thinks it funny to enter my home on the pretext of finally obeying my requests, only to break into my private vaults and tamper with my property.” His smile is very white against the dark. “The Lady Pitchiner is a threat to the smooth operation of the empire, a dissenter and traitor, and a constant and incessant thorn in my side. And I want her out. Of. My. _Way_.”

Kozmotis can’t breathe, can’t so much as think. The fearling voices are clamouring in protest, arguing that she is _theirs_ , no one gets to destroy the Pitchiners because they are _theirs_ , but Kozmotis himself can barely muster a single coherent thought.

“Seraphina…?” he asks, and his voice is hoarse.

Tsar Lunanoff takes another step closer. His voice is low and rough with constrained anger. “The lot of you have grown too proud, too fearless, too self-assured. You _all_ need to be put back in your place.” He licks his lips, a wet sound that makes Kozmotis recoil in disgust. “You will kill Lady Pitchiner. The girl too.” His voice drops another octave. “And perhaps _that_ will remind you who, exactly, is in control here.”

_Us_ , the fearlings chorus, as the Tsar’s fingers twist the key in the collar’s lock. _Us us us we are in control and they will be all ours ours ours ours!_

The collar falls free, and the fearlings surge gleefully forward, dragging Kozmotis along with them.

…

The manor is dark tonight, the usual glow of the twin moons all but absent, the starlight lamps flickering and guttering in the wake of the shadows that swirl up around Kozmotis with every movement. It doesn’t matter to him; even if he could not see catlike through the deepest dark, even if he couldn’t feel the sharp points of two frightened heartbeats in the depths of the manor, he could still find his way based on memory alone. He knows every room, every hall, as well as he knows the sound of his daughter’s laughter, the touch of his wife’s hand.

This was not how he wanted to come home.

He drags a clawed hand along the wall as he stalks down the long hall leading to the suite of rooms he and Astrid share. His mind whirls, refusing to slow down long enough that he can _think_ , trying desperately to find a way out. He can’t – he _won’t_ – hurt either of them, but he isn’t sure he has any choice in the matter.

Too soon, he finds himself outside Astrid’s door. His hand reaches out and rattles the knobs without his instruction, testing the strength of the lock before pounding heavily on the door. Astrid is awake, he can tell by the way her fear and apprehension mount with each heavy blow. The fearlings are nearly wild with ecstasy; they know their craft well, and Kozmotis is certain that they will wring every drop of fear they can from his wife and daughter, before – before he is forced to carry out his orders.

There _must_ be a way out.

The fearlings cease their pounding, and his stomach twists as they drop into shadow, turning insubstantial and slipping past the door through the dark as though through water. This is a trick that they never tire of, but no matter how many times they use it, Kozmotis never gets used to the feeling.

Astrid is sitting up in bed, her keen eyes bright against the dark, the rabbit-quick pace of her heart ringing loud in his ears. She is impossibly lovely, her beauty only compounded by her fear, and Kozmotis curses the stars, the Constellations, but most of all the Tsar himself. There _must_ be a way, something he can do to break free –

A sudden jolt of electric pain flares through every nerve of his nonexistent body, and he muffles a shout with a mouthful of shadows. Astrid spins, a spike of bittersweet terror, and calls out, “Who’s there?”

Kozmotis can’t answer, can barely even think through the crashing waves of pain. The Tsar must have decided he’s taking too long, that something has gone wrong.

Perhaps, he thinks, and he isn’t certain if the thought comes from the fearlings or if it is his own, the Tsar and his men would be appeased by a scream.

He moves with the fearlings now, united in their desire to draw evidence of terror from Astrid’s throat. Perhaps it will buy Kozmotis a little more time, it will surely keep the fearlings sated for a while, and perhaps – the thought is dark and heated – he simply wants to hear her scream.

They flicker through the room, strange shadows warping and wheeling on the walls and up and over her head, among the arches of the ceiling. The fearlings chitter and whisper and set the shadows rustling, and Astrid follows every sound, every shifting movement, with wide and frightened eyes. She barely moves, seemingly frozen in place, and more than once her eyes dart to the door, gaining a calculating look for a handful of seconds before the next shift of shadows catches her attention.

“Show yourself!” she demands, and fear pitches her voice higher than usual.

The shadows ringing the room freeze in place, and then all at once race in towards the bed, towards Astrid, who clenches her fists into the bedclothes so tightly that they are likely to tear. The tide of dark converges, draws together in a pool around and beneath the bed, and pauses, just long enough for Astrid to draw two shaky breaths.

And then they explode upwards, falling down over her and smothering the sound of her shriek before it can fully escape.

The dark recedes as the pain does, and Kozmotis gains form again, piecing himself slowly together from the dispersing shadows. Astrid is untouched, her eyes still wide, the fear trickling away only to be replaced by disbelief. “Koz -”

He raises a finger for silence. “You know why I’m here.”

“I suppose it’s not just to scare me back into line.” Astrid wraps her arms around herself, hugging her shoulders, and Kozmotis wishes he could hold her without fear of tainting her, that he could reassure her when he can’t even reassure himself.

He knows when the thought strikes her by the metallic taste of dread on the air, knows what she’s about to ask seconds before she opens her mouth. “What about Seraphina?”

Kozmotis can’t meet her eyes. It seems to tell her all she needs to know.

“I’ll kill him,” she whispers. “I’ll _destroy_ him.”

“You’ll have to get in line.” He looks down at the cuffs still encircling his wrists, their dull metal managing an oily gleam even in this darkness.

Astrid follows his gaze. “What are you going to do?” she asks, her voice hushed.

Kozmotis can only shake his head.

“They won’t be fooled for long,” he says, to drown out the curious whispers that want to know what if, what if they just stroked her cheek, what if they just reached out and took her hand, it would be so easy, she’d never even notice until the dark was already running through her veins – “Whatever it is, it will have to be soon.”

“I have an idea,” Astrid says softly, directly beside him, the warmth of her breath brushing the shell of his ear and sending little thrills all down his spine. The whispers grow louder, and he grits his teeth. “The cuffs – they’re made to withstand _darkness_ , yes?”

“I - suppose so,” Kozmotis manages, balling his right hand into a fist. It’s not something he’s ever thought about, really, and he would wonder why, but Astrid’s closeness is so very distracting. He tries to remind himself that he’s running out of time, that _Astrid and Sera_ are running out of time, but that only makes the fearlings louder. He could _save_ them, could keep them forever, and all it would take is a touch…

“Well, what would happen -” Astrid starts, and it’s then that the bedroom doors burst open.

Kozmotis leaps to his feet, shadow arching up behind him, ready to crash down on the intruder. But instead of the armoured guards he expects, standing in the doorway is his daughter, her hair tousled and her nightdress askew, but with steel in her eyes and his starsword glowing brightly in her hands. For one wild instant, he can’t understand how she’s found it – hadn’t it been left behind, along with everything good in him, at the doors of the prison planet? Had – had she really been there, after all?

But then he remembers. His sword would have been returned to his family, as all fallen soldiers' swords were (when they could be recovered, of course): at his funeral, a final honour to the widow of a war hero. After all, there’s no way the Tsar would have gotten away with all of this if anyone had had any inkling that Kozmotis was still alive. And how long would Tsar Lunanoff have waited after that to begin courting Astrid? Had he even given her time to grieve, or had he delivered his ultimatum along with the news of her husband’s ‘passing’?  Give in to his desires, or be the next victim of his new terror on a leash?

Kozmotis’ stomach turns at the thought.

“Get away from my mother,” Seraphina says, and her voice is level and hard. The light from the celestial blade, illuminating her face from below, makes her look older than her fifteen celestial cycles. Kozmotis takes a step forward, and she holds the blade higher, ready to strike. Clearly she’s been practicing, and proud as he is, he can’t help but wish she didn’t have to.

“Sera,” he says, and her grip wavers, if only for an instant.

“Stay _away_!”

“Sera, it’s me _-_ ”

“No, it’s not,” she says, and if there’s a hint of uncertainty in her voice, it doesn’t show in her eyes. “My father’s dead.”

If he’d only had her conviction, Kozmotis reflects, they wouldn’t be here right now.

“Seraphina,” Astrid says, sharply, and the wave of relief that rolls off of Sera at the sound of her mother’s voice is like balm. “We don’t have much time. We’re all in danger -”

“I can see _that_ ,” Seraphina snaps, raising the blade the few inches that it had dropped in her relief. Kozmotis nods, holding out both hands in a way that he hopes seems less threatening, willing the shadows back to sleep.

“The Tsar wants us both dead,” Astrid says, bluntly, and Sera looks up as though she’s been slapped. Her eyes flick over to Kozmotis, narrowing dangerously.

“Did _he_ tell you that?”

 If there was just something he could say, could do, to prove that this, that _he_ , isn’t a trick-!

 “Your face is in my locket,” he says, quietly. The locket in question had been taken from him, of course, stripped from him like his sword and his armour and his sanity, but he remembers the portrait well. “You wouldn’t sit still to be painted. It was a lovely day when we had you sit for the miniature, and you kept getting distracted by nothing at all – flowers, and butterflies, and passing stars – we nearly had to strap you to your seat.”

Seraphina gives him another long look, searching for something, and slowly, deliberately, lowers the sword.

There’s a crash from down the hall, a sound very like the one made when Seraphina broke the lock on Astrid’s door. Kozmotis whirls to face the doorway, and manages to take one step towards it before every fibre of him explodes in pain. He crumples in on himself, clawing desperately at the cuffs even though he knows it will do him no good.

Seraphina raises both hands, as though she’s forgotten the sword she holds, before remembering herself. “You’re not lying.” Kozmotis shakes his head once, even that little motion sending off a chorus of gunshots in his head, and she draws in a deep, steadying breath. “So what do we do?”

He can’t meet her eyes. She’s always looked up to him, almost revered him, idolized him as a child will a parent whom they hardly ever see. And now she’s looking up to him, as he’d thought she never would again, and how does he tell her that her hero doesn’t know what to do? That he cannot save her, any more than he can save himself?

“I don’t know,” he says, and it comes out harsher than he means it, rough with hurt. “I don’t -”

“I do.” Astrid’s voice is as firm as it is gentle.  “Sera, the sword, please?”

The only sounds in the room are Kozmotis’ breathing and, from the hall, approaching footsteps.

The fearlings lose patience before their host does. They pull him forward, the shadows around the room flickering to menacing life as they reach out for Astrid.

She snatches his starsword out of Seraphina’s hands, and swings.

For an instant, all three stand utterly motionless. And then, lines of light spiderweb out across the cuff on Kozmotis’ left wrist, spreading out from the smouldering score where the blade had caught it. An instant later, it shatters, falling into pieces, and all at once, he can breathe again, the burning in his veins slowly cooling.

Astrid looks up, and her smile is fierce and shines like a knife. “Just as I thought. They can hold up to the dark, but they can’t take the light,” she says triumphantly. “Hold still.” Another deft strike later, the other cuff joins its twin.

It’s as though a crushing weight has been lifted from Kozmotis’ shoulders. He straightens with a sigh, flexes his fingers experimentally, and laughs delightedly when not even a twinge of pain answers the movement.

For what feels like the first time in a very long time, his smile is real.

Seraphina takes a step back, but her fear is shallow compared to before, and disappears like smoke when Astrid only smiles back at him. “Darling, would you mind?” she asks, as casually as though this were an ordinary evening, as though she’s merely asking him to take out the trash.

“With pleasure.” The sounds of armoured, booted men trying to move stealthily are just outside the doors now, and Kozmotis and fearlings move as one, pulling shadow around them like a cape and into a dark imitation of his dress armour. A shadow of himself he might be, but at least he is a shadow of _himself_ , not the Tsar’s personal pet monster. “My sword?”

Astrid turns the blade carefully so that the hilt faces Kozmotis. He takes it from her almost reverentially, and feels his hand settling into place on its grip, the weight of the sword familiar in his hand. The starsword flares bright as a supernova at his touch, before the glowing blade fills with swirling, sucking dark deep as a black hole. He gives it a few experimental swings, and turns a smile of less-than-innocent anticipation to Astrid and Seraphina. “Won’t be but a moment.”

The first of the Tsar’s men pushes aside the door that hangs open on its hinges, and loses his head. Kozmotis guts another before they realise what’s happening, and fall on him at once. It does them no good. He may be slightly rusty with the sword after his months of imprisonment, but he is well practiced with shadows, and the hall is full of them.

One foolish man tries to slip past, into the room where Astrid and Seraphina still wait, only to be caught around the ankle by a tendril of shadow, slammed to the ground, and dragged screaming back into the somehow deeper dark of the hall. His frantically clawing hands find no purchase on the slick tiled floor.

Kozmotis brings the sword down, and the screaming stops.

It isn’t long before the soldiers are all dead or wisely pretending to be. Kozmotis drops the bodies through shadow and out into the hold of the ship that brought them here. If the survivors wish to escape, they may as well. It wouldn’t do to leave them lying about his hall like rather macabre decorations.

The Tsar, coward that he is, is waiting in the entryway. His sword is drawn, but he shows no sign of going to the aid of his men. His fear colours the air like fireworks, and he turns in slow circles with the sword raised like one who has only ever held a blade in ceremony. Kozmotis cannot contain his laughter at the sight, and both the Tsar’s sword and his terror flash silver-bright.

His grip tightens on the hilt when Kozmotis steps smiling out of the shadows. “General,” Tsar Lunanoff says, and it’s to his credit that his voice is level and steady. “Where are my men.” It’s not a question. Kozmotis can tell by the way the Tsar’s gaze flicks to Kozmotis’ wrists when Kozmotis rests his hand on the hilt of his sword, hanging comfortably at his hip.

And, as the Tsar has not actually asked a question, Kozmotis does not give him an answer. Instead, he saunters forward, relishing the swell of fear with every step he takes. The Tsar backs away, holding his sword between them more like a talisman than a weapon. Its blade glows the cold white of moonlight, and Kozmotis draws his own sword, nodding thoughtfully as that reflected radiance is drawn away into his black-hole blade. Behind the thoroughly terrified Tsar, the shadows stir to sluggish life.

“Stay back,” Tsar Lunanoff shouts, the first hint of a waver infiltrating his steady voice. “I _order_ you -”

“Tell me, my lord,” Kozmotis says, and the fearlings hiss just under his voice, sharpen his teeth, stretch his pleasant smile just beyond the physical limits of his face. “ _Do you find me frightening now?”_

…

Astrid starts forward when he swings the door open. She’s holding the heavy brass clock from her bedside table, poised and ready to swing. A little behind her, Seraphina is watching the windows, one of the curtain rods held like a quarterstaff in her capable hands. They’ve lit one of the lamps, and the room is full of a soft golden glow that casts flickering shadows along the walls.

Astrid lowers her makeshift weapon slightly when she sees his face, but does not loosen her grip.

“You’re safe,” Kozmotis says quietly, slipping his sword back into his belt. Seraphina half-turns at the sound of his voice, bringing the curtain rod up in a quick, smooth movement that would have knocked him flat had he been standing any closer. “I…took care of things. There are no bodies, nothing to -”

He’s cut off when Astrid drops the clock and flings herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. For a moment, he thinks she’s sobbing into his shoulder, before she raises her head and it’s clear that she’s laughing, hard, with an edge of hysteria. She catches his face in both hands, and kisses him fiercely, deeply, as though she’s drowning and he is air. It takes his mind a moment to catch up, but when it does he wraps one arm around her waist and the other into her golden hair, and kisses her back.

And for a single, fragile moment, everything is perfect.

Then Astrid wrenches herself away, pawing desperately at her mouth, pausing only to stare at the darkness weaving its way up and around her arms. She looks up at him, and her eyes are wide with horror.

“I’m sorry,” Kozmotis whispers, reaching out, and Astrid slaps his hand away, clutching at her throat as the blackness crawls rapidly out from her mouth, spiraling in jagged arcs across her face and down her neck. “I tried to warn you -”

Seraphina steps forward, clutching the curtain rod so tightly that her knuckles are white. “What’s happening?” she demands, looking from her mother to her father with mounting dread. “What did you do?”

Astrid coughs, curling in on herself, and spits something black and tarry onto the floor. She straightens, slowly, and looks at her hands as though trying to read messages inscribed in the lines etched there, before she raises her eyes to meet Kozmotis’ gaze. For an instant, her irises flicker gold, before settling into a chilly quicksilver. Her lips move, silently, and when the words come they’re slightly out of sync, haunted by a hissing echo.

“Do they ever stop screaming?”

Her voice is low and hoarse and curious. Kozmotis reaches out again, and this time, she lets him take her hand, lets him enfold her in his arms.

“They will,” he promises, pressing his face into the raven’s-wing sweep of her once-golden hair. “They will.”

Astrid smiles up at him, wide and trusting, and then turns to the third member of their little family, holding out an arm. “Seraphina?”

Seraphina freezes in place, and her fear is loud enough to fill the room.

Astrid’s smile is beatific. “Come give your father a hug.”

…

The next morning, the discovery of a ship full of mutilated bodies docked at a lonely port sends the fashionable planet into an uproar, only increased when the most mangled of the bodies proves to be that of the Tsar Lunanoff, undisputedly the most powerful and well-loved of the Constellations.

In all the excitement, no one thinks to question the odd darkness and stillness that has fallen over the Pitchiner manor. At least, not until it is far, far too late.


End file.
